A lot of people email me and ask questions, and they don't get the concept of only capturing the overflow. They're like, "Oh, how do you get it?" They don't understand what that means. So talk a little bit about that.

Bryan00:18

It's sacrilege when they use the word 'well'. Everybody uses the word 'well'. Where's the well? I don't have a well, what's a well? A well is where they drill a metal pipe in the ground. They put a pump down there and they suck water up. We don't have a well around here. Well, how do you get the water? I capture it. Well, from where? From a natural spring. What's a natural spring? Okay, that's how rare they are. The age-old definition of spring water is water that flows naturally to the surface of the earth. That's a natural spring. You hear the word artesian. It should not be used with the word spring. All springs, by definition, should be flowing to the surface. Artesian refers to wells, and positive pressure in a well, or many times emanating from the top of the well. It's an artesian well, where it doesn't need to be pumped out, it's flowing out. But that's only because you drill the borehole down, sometimes three feet in diameter, and you release all the natural restriction on the aquifer, so now the water comes up unencumbered with particulate matter and everything else, so you don't get the quality you get with a percolating spring. That natural spring, when it finally percolates to the surface at the end of the hydrologic cycle, what emanates from that sand and gravel base is water of extreme quality. Just incredibly filtered by nature. No pumps, no boreholes, no well, none of this nonsense. We do it just like they did it hundreds of years ago. They just build a granite block foundation around where the water was naturally emanating from the ground, to try to prevent leaves and other things from falling into the water. And then Franklin van Zelm, who was a very famous Christian Science [inaudible] cartoonist in the 1930s, built a spring house, which stands today. Our iconic spring house was built in August of '36. It's 80 some years old.

Seth02:31

When do you think they put the concrete around the actual spring itself?

Bryan02:36

The concrete was done by the woman I bought the spring from.

Seth02:40

Oh, okay. So it was recent

Bryan02:43

The skim coating of the concrete was done back in the early 80s, because the regulatory bodies did not like the fact that granite blocks are butted end to end. That is not a perfect join, right? So something could get through that joint. So that's how it was built way back when, was granite block, granite block and granite block, down everywhere but they have natural cracks, so the state wanted everything skim coated with concrete to seal off all those cracks. She did that in the early 80s.

Seth03:23

Around the actual spring, I know we have a few photos that are...they're old. I don't know what year they are, late 1800s maybe, but it looked like there was something around it. Was that just gravel?

Bryan03:35

On the top surface of the ground?

Seth03:37

Well like, on the outside of the spring. It's almost like a structure around it.

Bryan03:46

You're seeing wide granite slabs that the fieldstone was built on top of.

Seth03:55

Oh okay, that's what I was going for. That's what I meant.

Bryan03:58

They stick out further than...the walls of the spring house are not as wide as the granite slabs that were put there.

Seth04:06

Do you know when those were put there?

Bryan04:11

I'm assuming those were put there, probably...could have been the 1700s. I don't really know, that's a good question. You know, the earliest photo I have is 1852, and they are there then. So it was prior to 1852. Because remember, the water was not commercially sold as a water until 1875. That's why we use 1875 on the label. That's the first commercial sale as a bottle of water. The records dated to 1792, were family. The original stewards moved their family there and bought the land because of the copious water supply of the natural spring, because they had big families and they wanted to grow crops, and drink the water. So there are certified historic records to 1792. 1875 is the first commercial sale as a bottled water.

Seth05:12

Unbelievable.

Bryan05:14

The hotel was built in 1888.

Seth05:18

Let's talk about that, because that's a fascinating concept. Why the hotel was built, and that amazing word that nobody knows - [inaudible]therapy.

Bryan05:31

Absolutely. You can speak about that even more than me, but like you said the old Greek healing modality to take the waters, right? There were other famous places in America where they did this. This was one of them. People would come spend the entire summer. Now to get here, they had to come by steamship. They had to come up through the canal from Portland, Maine, through the locks on the Sanga River are the oldest hand-operated locks in the United States. So because of the different levels of Sebago lake and [inaudible], so people had to come by steamship all the way through the locks, all the way to Harrison, where the steamship docked. We have photos of all this. And then they were taken by horse-drawn carriage up here to the hill, to spend the whole summer, where they grew their own food, and people drank the water to heal, and they stayed in the hotel.

Seth06:27

People would go through all of that, to come visit this reputable source and drink from the waters. And now look, now you can go to the website, you can order it, UPS will bring it to you in less than a week. People in New England can go to their local stores and get it. We don't recognize how easy the access to this is, now. Look at what they went through back then to try to get it. You don't need to do that now.

Bryan06:55

Yeah, it took them weeks to get here, or a week, or whatever, and they stayed the whole summer.

Seth07:01

So this hotel is a 55 room hotel, right?

Bryan07:06

Four stories high. They bragged about having gas lanterns. So instead of the old flame lanterns with oil, they had some of the first gas lanterns, and actually had heat in every room. They bragged about having heat in every room. And it was $12 a week to stay there. We have all the brochures. The history is...As I said, this is one of the oldest natural spring sources in North America. We have a history that nobody can touch. The historical significance of this place is astounding. From the earliest parts of American history, this was a famous place to visit.

Seth07:54

It's unbelievable. I mean, again, it's one of these things that in our modern age, people aren't even able to equate the type of value that is truly inherent in it. To them, it's just like, "Oh, this thing..." They don't even get it.

Bryan08:14

Everything else today is a modern garbage creation of nonsense.

Seth08:20

Modern Marketing Marvel. Yes.

Bryan08:21

It's like a pet rock. Remember the little pet rocks, with the little stickers on them? I mean, who has the historical significance of this place? I'll tell you one story. There's a windmill on the property. It's called Chicago air motor. Okay, look it up. The company is still in business. The company actually moved to South America, I believe it's in Kentucky. They make windmills for all the farmlands, you see Chicago air motor, everywhere. Famous windmill, they probably control 90% of the windmill market, right? Everywhere you go out in New Mexico, Texas, windmills everywhere. Chicago air motor. There's a Chicago air motor windmill on this property, on this site. Well, guess when the first year of Chicago air motors history was? 1888, the same year they built the hotel. I believe that Chicago air motor windmill is probably one of the first ones they ever built. And they are still in business to this day. And it's still there on the site. Obviously they took the stand down, it's not functioning, but we have the windmill itself. You can clearly identify Chicago air motor on the rotor. That's another piece of incredible Americana, right there. Look at any other bottled water company, and show me - like we show our source on the website, right? We show our actual source bubbling out of the ground. Nobody does that. In the world. How much have we searched, Seth? We've searched the World Wide Web.

Seth08:22

And we've had a bunch of other people search.

Bryan08:45

You can't find it. What is everybody hiding?

Seth09:18

I think I did a contest one time, like, if you can find another source of water that will show you their source online, tell us and win a prize.

Bryan10:27

Talk about transparency. What is everybody hiding? What? You and I know what they're hiding. They don't have one. It's been destroyed. They've put a borehole there. And they've destroyed the natural spring and they've sucked it - Nobody has a real natural spring emanating from the ground like we do. That's why you don't see any, that's how rare it is.

Seth10:50

And it's very sad, too, because...The great thing is, now there's a modern movement of people who are starting to learn about it. They're starting to learn about springs, but they don't understand the difference between a deep bedrock fracture spring, and like a side of the road thing that's bubbling off to the side of the road. There's a very distinct, monumentally indescribable, incomparable difference between the two. Okay, so that's why I said, like Daniel and I, we went to all these springs, we've seen them all, to see a cold spring at this high of an elevation, producing this much water...It's just something. You're just like, "Wow,what is this?" It's like a sacred site. It's somewhere where you're just touched by it.

Bryan11:50

I'll tell you, here's how you know the difference. There is nothing. There is no 'above'. When you see a roadside spring, what is above that? Where is that water coming from? You need to hike up in there and find where is 'the above'. Where is the source of that water? You're not gathering the water at the source, you're gathering the water through an old iron pipe, or a plastic pipe, or who knows what? [inaudible] cradle to the grave. At Summit Spring, there is no above. People who say, "Well, what about the fish?" No, there is no above.

Seth12:36

There's no pond. There's no lake. It's not running up. This isn't a stream. This is a spring. Yes. No above.

Bryan12:44

It's not a stream that runs and falls into the rock somewhere, and then emanates from another rock, and appears like some natural...it's just finding its way down the mountain. Now, if you want to hike to the top of the mountain, and you can find an area of sand like we have, where stuff is bubbling up out of the ground. That, my friends, is the source, because there is no more above, except heaven. There's nothing. If you find a source of water, and there's still something above that, you're not at the source. That is the deciding factor. That's what you need to ask yourself. If there's still an above, what's happening between where I'm taking it out of this pipe and above? Is there open areas that are not protected? Could a dead animal fall in there? That's where you have issues. But natural spring water, if you find the natural spring, is the emanating point. Water flows naturally to the surface of the earth, not down the side of a mountain, coming out to the side of a rock where there's another waterfall up above it and everything. That's surface water. You know, we got to get into that at some point. Surface water, versus groundwater. Night and day difference.

Seth14:10

Let's get into right now, let's just do it, because the goal with this series, and we might stop it at any point, we'll just keep going or I might edit these, or whatever. We'll figure out how. It doesn't even matter. But we want to cover as many different aspects relating to this water, and water in general, and do it in a very education-based way, because there's a lot of misinformation. There's just a lot of plain ignorance, because nobody was ever taught these things. So, again, this is something that, two people who have a devout interest in the love of water, in the quality and integrity of the bottling operation that we have, this is...We've put our homework in. We have researched, we have spoken to experts. And for everybody here, too, I'm going to be doing another podcast with my dear friend [inaudible], Austin, which is going to go in a completely different direction than what Brian and I are doing. We're going to get into a lot of really different, harder to quantify stuff. More ethereal stuff, but that is becoming less ethereal, because of quantum physics. Now, these things that used to be termed 'weird' or 'out there' or 'pseudoscience' are becoming less so, because of quantum physics. So it's been proven, but what Brian and I are sharing here are things that we both feel should be common knowledge and common sense to the masses, to the majority people, and the very plain truth is that they're not. So let's get into this, what you're saying with with surface water. Let's go into that.

Bryan16:01

Yeah. It's the misinformation, because nobody knows what a natural spring is. One of those other bottled water companies that are selling garbage, saying, "Oh, spring water is terrible, because a bear can pee in it, or the fish pee into it, the fish poo..." Well, it's just complete and utter nonsense, right?

Like, I'm sorry, how is a bear gonna get into the spring house, and then inside the stainless steel container we have, to pee in the water? This just goes to show you that people don't understand. People think of a spring as a stream. It's not a stream. This is where you get groundwater versus surface water, right. Lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, all surface water, all subject to contamination by a myriad of things, including animals and bacteria and parasites and radiation, and acid rain and fallout, and everything else. All these surface water supplies really have to be treated. There are some exceptions in very remote locations, and even in Maine. But you have to be very careful, because things can be polluted very easily. Groundwater comes from the ground, deep underground. Now, there are different types of groundwater. There's shallow groundwater, which we think of as the water table, where there's water underneath the surface everywhere, where everybody drills their shallow well in to get water for their home, right? 45 million American homes source water, which believe it or not, is raw water, from a well in their backyard.

Seth18:04

How many Americans drink raw water every day, and they don't even realise it?

Bryan18:08

45 million households. I mean, that's untreated water from the ground. They may put a filter on there for sediment, but they're not treating for pathogens.

Seth18:19

Shallow groundwater, like you said, that's very, very superficial at the surface.

Bryan18:25

...tap on the water table, is all you're doing. And for people that fly over the country, if you've ever flown coast to coast, you will see these circles of vegetation on the ground, all these crop circles, because that's where the moving sprinkler system goes in a circle, right? And that's a tapped well, as well. And most of those are in the middle of the country. One of the largest aquifers in the world is called the Ogallala that runs from North Dakota to Texas. But that water is fossil water. Like fossil fuel, it was put there in a different time. And it's not being replenished. That water is beneath an impermeable layer. So you can drill down and tap, and you can take it, like a huge underground lake, almost. But they used to be able to drill down 300 feet, now they're drilling down 1300. That water is going down, down, down. We are draining that aquifer, and it is not being replenished. So once it's gone, it's gone. That water is not coming to the surface naturally, it is not a spring. It is groundwater, pure indeed. But it's not deep water like a natural spring. And then you go even further into deep water. And you, at some other point, can talk about primary water and the origins of very deep groundwater, which is in dispute. But this water.... Nobody knows. They estimate at least 1000 feet down, or more. This water has been trapped underground for a millennia. Only we can prove, since 1954, because of the nuclear detonation and the nuclear isotopes...that's a whole other subject...

Seth20:14

That are absent. That are completely absent in this water, but that are present in the highest quality organic foods.

Bryan20:21

You can't carbon date water, because there's no carbon in water. If you found carbon in water it would indicate some living thing at some point. It's just not there. This stuff is stored in bedrock, carbon's not there. All the experts estimate deep groundwater at least 10,000 years old. It could be a million years old. Nobody really knows. This water has not seen the light of day or any contaminants from man, any events - Let's face it, this earth was extremely pure before man. There weren't chemicals, all these things are manmade contaminants, nuclear weapons and fallout, and burning fossil fuel. None of these things ever happened. So that water is of incredible purity, and for a natural spring to occur, it must be being replenished. Water is entering that aquifer, and an aquifer is defined as anything that holds water. It could be sponge-like Earth, it could be caves, or caverns of granite. It can be sand, like in Florida, aquifers can be made of anything. Typically in Florida, they're made of sand. And so when they take it out, it collapses into a sinkhole, which causes a big problem. In Maine, and places up here, we have a bedrock strata. You could take all the water out and it just stops flowing, which has happened in history. But that flow rate that we have, Summit Spring is historically 38 gallons a minute minimum, and sometimes it surges to 80 gallons a minute with seasonal fluctuations, like snow melt, with a delay period built in, but that water is being replenished. If it was not being replenished, it would stop flowing. Nature has its own governor, its own throttle. It flows at a rate where the aquifer is always full and overflowing. So the flow in is overflowing the aquifer at the same rate that we see it coming out. So we're not harming the environment, we take only the natural overflow. That's why that source and its flavor and its profile, its chemical profile, has stayed consistent for all of recorded history for hundreds of years, because it's in a state of equilibrium. We're not interfering with it. We're not interfering with nature. We're letting nature give to us what she can, at the rate she can. We're just capturing her excess.

Seth23:01

I love the way you said that. My gosh.

Part 3: The Story of Tourmaline Spring - We only capture the overflow

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Tourmaline Spring

Flawless, Gem-Grade Spring Water, Verified Naturally Pure by Science, and Freely Bubbling to the Earth's Surface in Maine Since the Last Ice Age